


Noldorin red

by Elesianne



Category: The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Brothers, Drinking, Gen, Some Humor, Years of the Trees
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-20
Updated: 2020-08-25
Packaged: 2021-03-07 03:01:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,924
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26009968
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Elesianne/pseuds/Elesianne
Summary: Chapter I: Curufin enjoys the wine at his coming-of-age celebration rather too liberally, Caranthir overhears things about himself, and the co-operation of brothers is needed to save the night.Chapter II, added 25th August: When tensions rise in Tirion, Amrod and Amras unwind with a quiet evening at home and keep company to surprise visitors.
Comments: 12
Kudos: 27





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this for a prompt on Tumblr (Curufin and the line 'How much of that did you hear?') by Alkarinque. I took the opportunity to write about an incident that Carnistir mentioned in an early chapter of _Your spirit calling out to mine_.

‘I’m not his keeper’, Carnistir protests, but because it is his mother asking, he sighs and goes looking for his little brother without much grumbling.

Typical of Curufinwë to draw even more attention to himself, not to mention their mother’s worry, by disappearing while his coming-of-age celebration is still in full swing. Carnistir searches the feast hall first, but Curvo’s not there, of course not. Their mother would have found him if he was.

He looks into each of the side chambers, glad of his height that allows him to just about see over most people’s heads, but there is no sign of Curufinwë’s obnoxiously crimson-clad figure there either.

He moves into the surrounding hallways.

'You’, he barks at a passing servant. 'Have you seen prince Curufinwë? The younger.’

'No, my lord, I –’, the man begins.

Another servant pipes up, 'I saw him in the long gallery not long ago. Prince Tyelkormo, too.’

Carnistir goes there, then, half-annoyed and half-relieved at having to walk all around the palace on his mother’s errand. He is annoyed at Curvo – but to be honest with himself, he must admit that he wasn’t having that good of a time himself, and perhaps looking for Curufinwë is as good a use of his time as he could hope for right now. His friend Ontamo went home already, and Makalaurë has been too busy with his group of musicians to talk with Carnistir.

As Carnistir approaches the long gallery – a large room whose walls are covered in paintings and tapestries, many of the latter made by Carnistir’s grandmother – he hears voices through the open door.

'Come on, Curvo, don’t be grumpy’, says Tyelko’s amused voice, and, 'Give me that bottle, idiot. You’ve had quite enough.’

'No, I haven’t, you’ve had just as much.’

Carnistir snorts at Curufinwë’s petulant voice. How amusing that precocious know-it-all Curvufinwë should turn out to be a lightweight with alcohol.

He’s at the door of the gallery, about to step into the room, when he hears Curufinwë continue, morose, 'I should be more like Moryo. I don’t mind parties, you know I don’t, Tyelko, but I do mind being introduced to about a hundred people when I want to celebrate with those people I already know.’

Curufinwë belches, and Carnistir grimaces. He can see two pairs of legs sticking out on the floor from behind a fat-bellied cabinet.

He hesitates in the door, undecided on whether he wants to go in or stay and listen or turn on his heel and leave.

While he still hesitates, Curufinwë continues his drunken rant.

'No one tries to introduce Moryo to anyone anymore.’ Curufinwë manages to slur every single word. 'They know that he’s hopeless, he’ll just growl at them if they try to make conversation that’s not about, about the best kind of stone or drawing building plans or something – something like that.’ Carnistir’s ire is abated by Curufinwë’s addition of, 'Something sensible. None of this nonsense today.’

There is a second of silence, and then Tyelkormo’s voice warning, 'If you throw up, I will not clean it up.’

'Yes you would’, Curufinwë mumbles. 'I’m your favourite.’

'And don’t you know and exploit that’, Tyelkormo sighs. 'Come on. Up you get. We’ll find some way to sneak out without anyone seeing.’

'We should ask bloody Moryo’, Curufinwë grumbles. 'He often manages to leave parties early without anyone noticing. And he calls _me_ sneaky.’

Carnistir rolls his eyes. Curufinwë _is_ sneaky.

'Come on, Curvo’, says Tyelkormo again, exasperated.

Carnistir steps into the gallery and walks to his brothers with swift strides.

'Come on, Curvo’, he repeats. 'Let’s get you out before you embarrass the whole family.’

Curufinwë, who has just managed to get himself to his feet, flails with an uncharacteristic lack of grace and would probably fall if not for Tyelko’s iron grip on his arm.

'How much of that did you hear?’ Curufinwë is remarkably pale for someone so drunk.

'More than you’d like’, Carnistir replies, and adds, 'You should stick to the honey-wine. Leave the Noldorin red for real adults.’

Curufinwë protests instantly. 'The honeyed wine is Vanyarin!’

Carnistir smirks. 'It’s clearly all you can handle.’

He takes Curufinwë’s other arm and together he and Tyelkormo steer Curufinwë – who is mumbling about being very tired – towards the other end of the gallery. Carnistir knows a route through there that will take them to a side door that leads to the stables.

Even so, they happen to pass lady Maquetimië on their way out. She is one of the worst gossipmongers of the court. From the way her eyes light up as she recognises and greets the three of them, half-conscious Curufinwë still help up between Carnistir and Tyelko, Carnistir knows that the drunken state of the king’s grandson will be the principal rumour of tomorrow.

Carnistir doesn’t feel as bad about it as he probably should. He does help drag Curufinwë all the way home, though.


	2. Brotherly brooding

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I wrote another drinking-related short fic about Fëanorians for another prompt on Tumblr and decided to post it as a second chapter to this fic since the themes are similar and the characters in this one are also Fëanorians, although for the most part they're different Fëanorians.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The prompt was the line 'Are you drunk?', gen fic, and Amrod & Amras.
> 
> This takes place when the tensions among the Noldor are beginning to emerge.
> 
> Telvo = Telufinwë = Amras; Pityo = Pityafinwë = Amrod; Tyelko = Tyelkormo = Celegorm; Makalaurë = Maglor

‘Are you drunk?’

As it happens, Pityo isn’t drunk, just spending some quiet time in his room. He wouldn’t mind being drunk, he realises.

He lifts his head to ask, 'Do you want to – damn, Ambarussa, what happened to you?’

Telvo’s face is bruised and swollen. Pityo gets up and inspects it. 'I don’t think your nose is broken, but you should go and get some ice for it anyway.’

'It’ll heal soon enough. It's my own fault, anyway.’

Pityo takes one more look at him, sighs, and goes dig out the bottle of strong spirits from the deep trunk in the corner where they keep the things they’d most like to hide from their brothers. It doesn’t always succeed, of course, especially since Tyelko likes to 'borrow’ things without asking for permission, but this time the bottle is still where Pityo stashed it some weeks ago.

He hands the bottle to his twin and says, 'Hard to believe it’s your fault your nose is almost broken, unless you went running your mouth again at –’

He doesn’t need to even name the person for Telvo to know who he means.

'I might have’, Telvo says.

Pityo sighs. 'I’ll get some ice from the kitchen.’

Nodding his thanks, Telvo slumps on the floor, leaning against his bed.

Pityo rolls his eyes after he has turned his back. He’s not a paragon of patience himself, but Telvo is worse.

When he gets back to their room carrying a bowl of ice and a clean towel to wrap it in, he finds _two_ brothers on the floor, taking turns 'enjoying’ the mouth-burning spirits.

'What’s wrong with you?’ Pityo asks Tyelko as he passes the ice in the towel to his twin. 'Your face looks like you lost a fight too, though there doesn’t seem to be a scratch on you.’

'Írissë is mad at me’, Tyelkormo says, sullen and miserable. 'I didn’t mean to insult her father. Not while she could hear, I mean. But she heard anyway and got mad. She didn’t even pet Huan.’

Huan sighs and looks forlorn as he settles over Tyelko’s feet.

Pityo sighs, too. 'You two should just stay away from civilisation.’

Tyelko kicks his ankle. 'Brat.’

Pityo sits down, squeezing himself between his brothers because he wants Huan to be his foot-warmer too.

'Well?’ Pityo says. 'Give me the damn bottle, too, then. Since we seem to have chosen drunken brooding as our activity for the night.’

Telvo shoves his shoulder, just a little in a friendly manner, and passes the bottle to Pityo.

They sit in silence for a while, apart from Huan’s quiet snores.

'You have a brood of puppies you’re soon going to start training, right’, says Telvo to Tyelko after a while, his voice muffled by the ice he’s keeping on his face. 'You should give Írissë the best of them once they know how to behave. She might forgive you.’

'She does love good hunting dogs’, Pityo agrees.

'Mm. Perhaps.’ Tyelko stretches and belches. 'You need to spar with me more, Telvo. To learn how not to be taken by surprise so often.’

The bottle slowly empties while they talk half-seriously of serious things, complaining of them to their hearts’ content.

When there is no more drink to be had, Tyelko tosses the bottle to the floor with a clatter, to a protest from neat-freak Telvo and a startled noise from Huan.

'Don’t be childish, Tyelko.’ Pityo leans back. The ceiling is spinning a little. 'There are more bottles. You don’t need to punish that one for being empty.’

'Where?’ Tyelko clambers to his feet.

'In the cellar.’ Pityo chuckles as Tyelko curses.

And sits down. He and Telvo both look at Pityo.

Grumbling, he gets up. He takes the melted ice from Telvo and takes it to the kitchen, and then heads to the cellars, grateful that his father is at the palace and mother visiting her parents. He fetches two, no, three bottles, two of wine and another of the strong spirit to hide in his and Telvo’s room.

He stops short in the doorway again.

Tyelko and Telvo have been joined by Makalaurë and his wife, of all people. A lyre and flute lie carefully placed on Telvo’s desk, but Makalaurë has taken Pityo’s place on the floor, and Tinweriel lounges carelessly in the most comfortable chair in the room, her blood-red dress crumpled around her legs that she has draped over the side of the chair.

'I see that I must not leave this room tonight or an ever-greater number of miserable brothers will manifest in it’, Pityo announces, for Makalaurë looks far from happy, too, as does Tinweriel.

Pityo hands one bottle of wine to Tinweriel and the other to Tyelko, and pulls up the second most comfortable chair.

'You two don’t look too happy either’, he remarks, nodding to Makalaurë and Tinweriel. 'Oh’, he remembers to ask a little belatedly, 'do you want a cup to drink that from?’

'I’m not that fine a lady’, Tinweriel says with a crooked smile, taking a swig right from the bottle and giving it back to Pityo.

Pityo shrugs and takes it. What Tinweriel _is_ is a mercurial lady; on some other day she would ask for a silver goblet to be brought for her.

Not tonight. Tonight is a lazing together, drinking together, commiserating with each other kind of night.

It turns out that Makalaurë and Tinweriel have lost two choristers because they decided they couldn’t keep singing in a choir led by a son and daughter-in-law of Fëanáro when they disagree with his recent ideas.

'Good riddance’, Makalaurë declares. 'One of them couldn’t take direction well.’

'And the other wore colours that clashed with mine’, adds Tinweriel in a tone that makes it clear to anyone that knows her that she’s just making up reasons.

'You’ll find new ones’, Pityo says with a yawn. 'There are always people wanting to join, aren’t there?’

Makalaurë brightens a little, though he also asks for the wine to be passed to him.

Pityo scratches Huan behind the ears just as he likes, leans into his chair, half-listening to the talk around him, saying something encouraging now and then. He had a good day himself, training a young horse and treating another one’s sore leg.

He doesn’t leave the room again, though, telling the others it’s their turn. When they get hungry Tyelko goes to raid the larder, and Pityo builds a fire in the grate, and they while the night away together with quiet talk and quietly improving moods.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I would like to note, in case it needs to be said, that though the Fëanorians use alcohol to help cope with their problems, I do not recommend it. It's not healthy.
> 
> Thank you for reading! I would greatly appreciate any comments that you might have the time to write <3

**Author's Note:**

> I'm [ on Tumblr](https://elesianne.tumblr.com/).


End file.
